PPA denies spending $97m on e-GP

The Public Procurement Authority (PPA) has described as total falsehood reports that it is spending $97million on an electronic government procurement system (e-GP).

Rather, it said the World Bank- sponsored programme which cost $5 million was part of a larger project that cost $ 97million.

The $5 million is going into the engagement of an application service provider, sensitisation and training, roll-out expenses and other service cost.

Benefits

The e-GP, among others, is expected to strengthen transparency of government procurement, increase compliance with procurement policy, ensure public access to procurement information, and ensure less opportunity for corruptive, collusive, fraudulent and coercive practices.

The PPA’s reactions follow the public anger that has followed revelations that the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) spent $72 million on an information technology system.

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Genesis

Going into the details at a press conference in Accra last Tuesday, the Chief Executive of the PPA, Mr Agyenim Boateng Adjei, said the country in a quest to bridge the digital divide in its service delivery from manual to electronic systems obtained support from the World Bank in 2011.

The decision, he said, led to the engagement of PriceWaterHouse Coopers (Ghana-India) as consultants for the effective implementation of the projects in 2012.

The project was, however suspended when the e-Ghana project came to an end in 2012.

However, following further consultations, the government in September 2013 made proposals to the World Bank for a continuation of the project and other initiatives to support its information and communication technology (ICT) agenda, under what was termed e-Transform project.

“The project development objective is to improve the efficiency and coverage of government service delivery using information and communication technologies and improve the efficiency of public and private service delivery through smart use of ICT,” Mr Adjei said.

He said the proposal was successfully appraised by the World Bank and on July 30, 2014, a financial agreement was signed between the government and the World Bank to support the implementation of the e-Transform Project.

Components

The total credit extended to the government was $97 million for four main components—enabling environment for electronic government business, support for upgrading national identification system on online verification service, scale up applications to improve service delivery in priority sectors, as well as project management and impact evaluation.

Mr Adjei said under component three of the project, which was to scale up application to improve service delivery in the priority sectors, there were four other components, namely—E-Parliamentary system ($3.5 million); E-Justice system ($5 million); E-Procurement ($5 million) and E-Immigration ($ 15 million).

Bidders

He said after an international competitive tendering process for the selection of an application service provider, European Dynamics of Greece was selected and subsequently awarded a contract to provide an application for the e-GP in Ghana.

The contract was signed in June 2017, for the phase one of the implementation, which covers two years.

He said per the terms, European Dynamics would be paid $1,775,084 for the implementation of phase one of the project. The local component for the contract execution, which includes data centre services to be provided by the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), will cost GH¢ 423,233.

He said the remaining $3,128,645 would be used to cover other roll-out expenses to bring more entities onto the e-GP system.

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Starting of project

Mr Adjei said European Dynamics had successfully held a joint inception and consultations in July 2017 to start the entire process.

“Currently, system requirement specifications are being developed. Other integration systems requirements are being addressed with relevant stakeholders such as the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Registrar General’s Department, Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) and NITA,” he added.

He said the company was, therefore, expected to conduct training and implementation of the roll-out for six selected entities—Volta River Authority (VRA), Ghana Health Service (GHS), Department of Feeder Roads, Koforidua Technical University, Ghana Cocoa Board and the Tema Metropolitan Assembly.